Tire design and development requires the ability to assess the effectiveness of the tires and, in particular, how they behave under running conditions, as objectively as possible. Motorcycle tires are special among other types of tires in that they are used at a relatively high camber angle to allow for cornering.
During such cornering, the transverse grip of the tire is a key parameter that the tire designer wishes to evaluate in order to make progress with tire development.
The present methods for evaluating the transverse grip of a tire involve a subjective assessment by a rider driving a two-wheeled vehicle around a circuit comprising a maximum of bends. These methods allow the tires to be ranked against one another but are in part dependent on the assessment made by the rider and possibly also on the way in which he rides.